


between a rock and a hard place

by Zombieprinz



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, badass boasts galore, conquering the galaxy one drink at a time, mostly a character study for my Ryder but here we go, no beta we die like men, reyes really never had a chance lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 01:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20163070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombieprinz/pseuds/Zombieprinz
Summary: [ Asha Ryder is 50% space gin and 50% badass boasts. She also likes to keep Reyes on his toes.Together they are a match made in hell.]





	between a rock and a hard place

**Author's Note:**

> this has been lying around on my hard drive for a few months now, so I might as well get it out there

Asha Ryder was drunk.   
Not the sort of senseless drunk where she wasn’t paying attention anymore, or the lightheaded imbibedness with which she regaled entire audiences with smashing tales, or the sort of shitfaced that ended with her in a rover on the other side of the Eos desert. 

Instead it was a somber kind of drunkenness. Just this side of tipsy and perfect for reminiscing about past mistakes. 

Asha gestured to Umi to pour her another one. The Asari barkeep complied wordlessly, but not without shooting Asha a look. The one that, across all species, even the Angara, meant "I think you've had enough."   
Asha grinned at her, folded her hands over the durosteel tumbler with the full intention of brooding over the space gin long enough for it to turn lukewarm. She was here more often than not since discovering the planet, but as things were, even the most worrisome entities on her crew wouldn't begrudge her a night at the bar to hang after her thoughts. 

She was the human pathfinder. A beacon of humanity, the personified spirit of adventure and hope for the galaxy. She snorted at the thought.   
Sometimes she felt like a.... a charlatan. Hah.   
And there it was already. The reason she was drinking at Kralla's Song rather than at the Tartarus. Why she was even still planetside on Kadara was a mystery, even to her. Thousands of planets out there, dozens of worlds, and she was drinking at the exact spot where she had met Reyes Vidal. The irony wasn't lost on Asha. 

The message alert on her omnitool lit up for a brief second. Red, for urgent mails. She ignored it, for once. She hadn't told her crew where she was going, only that she was taking the night off from saving humanity and all other associated races. There were other pathfinders out there, somewhere. Let them do the pathfinding. Only Scott would know where she was, or have a chance to guess right, at least. Well, Scott, and one other. 

"Are we drowning our sorrows then?" The familiar voice behind her didn't even startle her. It was like her earlier thoughts had summoned the man himself, and she shrugged without even turning to look at Reyes. 

He took a seat beside her at the bar, took the gin from her and drank it.   
"Horrible stuff. No idea what they put in there, but I'd bet an eirochs against your ship that it's nothing that should even come near a drink."   
"Reyes Vidal. Smuggler, King of Kadara, Stealer of Booze. Stooping low there, Charlatan." Asha had dropped her voice on the last words, if only to not announce that secret to a cantina full of opportunists.   
"What can I say? I've always been a scoundrel." And there was the familiar mischievous glint in his eyes that promised he was up to no good. When was he ever?  
"Are you going to buy the next one? Or do you have a natural aversion to actually paying for your drinks?" Asha leaned against the countertop and gestured to Umi once again. The Asari's eyes flitted between the two of them, and Asha wasn't sure if it was to see who was going to pay, or if she just wanted to kick the both of them out. Reyes only shook his head in amusement and put down a few credit chips onto the bar. Archaic practise, but better than leaving a trail by paying with an omnitool. He did take both of the glasses Umi brought though.   
"Hey, are you going to share or not? Because I have you know I have a team of highly specialised misfits at my command who will make your life hell if you don't hand over the booze, Mister Vidal. Trust me, you don't want the unholy alliance of a krogan grandpa and an asari troublemaker set on you."   
"Everything but the asari." Reyes relented with that crooked smirk of his and slid the glass over to Asha, who grabbed for it with the abandon of a dehydrated dustrunner, but only cradled it to her chest. 

Reyes settled down beside her, and Asha resisted the urge to lean in his direction. They did have a few things to settle still, and technically she was still pissed at the man. If only out of the principle of the thing. She wanted to grin, but that would give it away. 

"So. Charlatan. Suppose I got an idea where you got that name from." Reyes grimaced but didn't look around to see who might have heard.   
"You do know I prefer to go by my given name, Ryder."   
"Yeah, but I suppose since you went through such a trouble to keep your alias from me, I might as well use it. Make it worth your while. And mine"   
"Again, I am sorry to have kept that detail from you, but it had to be done. I have responsibilities, even when acting from the shadows, and you were... a wildcard."  
"Wildcard, eh? What would you have done if I'd shot your sniper? Or you?"  
"Why, shoot back, of course."   
Asha raised an eyebrow.  
"Shoot the pathfinder? Bold."   
"Nobody said I would have shot to kill. Might have given you a pretty scar though."   
"Might have ended up dead yourself then. You haven't met my carnifex." Asha put her gun on the bar to give her words more weight, but didn't move to stop Reyes from picking it up, though everyone else in the bar tensed up at the sight of the gun.

"Oi, holster that thing or get the fuck out of my bar." Umi slapped a wet bar towel at the both of them. "Two rules. No guns, and certainly no drunks holding guns." She walked over and snatched the carnifex out of Reyes' hands before she turned to Asha. "Shame, Ryder. Pick that thing up tomorrow when you're sober."   
"Are you... confiscating my gun?" Asha stared at her incredulously. "However am I going to defend myself against this hooligan here who broke my heart?" She pointed at Reyes next to her, who rolled his eyes. Umi did so too. "You're an idiot, Ryder." "An idiot who saved the planet?", Asha tried again, but her gun had already disappeared into a safe place under the bar. 

"Ugh, figures." She put her forehead on the cool countertop, then turned to Reyes, smushing her cheek against the brushed steel in the process. "Hand to hand combat it is then." 

She pushed herself up from her slumped over position again with a grunt and brushed past Reyes and out of the door, leaving the smuggler to follow in her wake. They stepped outside and into the sweltering, slightly sulphuric heat that wouldn't let Kadara Port go even at night, the hectic bustle of the market street subdued but not gone. Asha set out in the direction of the space port, intending to return to the general vicinity of the Tempest’s docking bay, if only because her ship was the one familiar thing here, apart from Kralla's Song and Tartarus. And she wasn't quite ready to return into the HQ of the Outlaws. 

Reyes, behind her, was silent for a long time, but finally, in the shadows of the viewing platform, the Tempest's dark shape barely visible, he spoke up.  
"I broke your heart?" Reyes' tone startled Asha, and she turned around. He sounded too... honest. Too desperately hopeful.   
"Exaggeration, Reyes." She watched, amused, as he cast his eyes down, crestfallen. "You can't go breaking my heart or my trust with something I had already known going into this mess."   
"You...knew?"   
"That you were the Charlatan? Shena?" She quirked her lips up and leaned back, enjoying having the upper hand for once. "Reyes, I've known that since the first conversation we had about him. I'm a drunk. Not stupid. The way we kept circling back round?"   
"I didn't tell you anything any other person on Kadara couldn't have told you."   
"Oh, you have tells." She tapped her own mouth, the corners of her eyes, the pulse point on her neck, and Reyes' eyes followed as if mesmerized. "A small twitch here, a subtle pull of a muscle. You were fucking amused, leading me on. Just figured I'd return the sentiment."   
"If you knew the whole time, why did you let Sloane run into my trap like that?"  
"What can I say? I'm the patron saint of getting shit done. She wasn't giving me an outpost. I do hope you will, or I might have to get creative."   
"Is that a promise?" Reyes leaned forward, but the predatory note in his voice was offset by the gentle way in which he brushed a stray strand of hair out of Asha's face. Asha just swatted at him.   
"Careful, you're still on thin ice. Don't forget the asari. That was not an idle threat."   
"I tremble in fear."   
"Oh you should. Don't forget, I'm the pathfinder. Nowhere in the galaxy to hide from me. I run this shitshow."   
"Maybe I don't want to hide anymore. You said I am someone to you. I liked that. Made me feel important for who I am, not what I do."   
"Are you getting sentimental on me, Reyes?"   
"Yes." 

Asha smiled at him, that brilliant, toothy smile of hers that made people follow her into the worst battles.   
"Well I was being honest. I'm also tenacious. Once I've got something, I don't let go easily. It's one of the things that make me so good at what I do."   
"Claiming new planets?"   
"Loving." Asha took a step back to review the impact of her words.   
Reyes looked at her dumbstruck. "You love me?"  
"I probably shouldn’t, seeing as you're running a criminal empire and I'm the Initiative's paragon of virtue, and honestly I don't know who put that label on me, of all things, but stranger things have happened. And I don't take well to convention."  
"Be serious for once, Asha."   
"I am. You get one chance to back out of this, Reyes. I might have to be gone at a moment's notice. I might be gone for months at a time. I might die somewhere in a remnant vault with no one able to come dig my bones out. In fact, my untimely demise is long overdue, but here I am. " Asha stepped forward and into Reyes' personal space, digging her fingers into his collar. It wasn't quite a pull yet, but it was a possessive hold, and one that spoke entirely too much about what Asha thought about spending the rest of eternity in a cold, lifeless underground vault.   
"I have stolen, and lied, and killed. I have enjoyed it. I have tortured and betrayed. You should be the one to get the chance to back out. There are people who would not be wrong to call me a monster."   
Asha grinned, content at staying where she was despite the gruesome confession, and patted his shoulder.   
"You can be a happy monster. I've known all that shit already, and I've made my decision. You aren't getting rid of me just because you think you could scare me. You can't. I'm the pathfinder." 

Reyes looked at her with wide eyes, as if Asha herself was a revelation he had waited for his whole life. "No wilder hearts than yours have beaten, in this galaxy or in any other." 

Asha froze for a second, mulled over the words in her mind. "You sure you're not a poet, Reyes?"  
Reyes' hands sneaked around the Pathfinder's waist, but he used his heavier frame to maneuver her into a darker corner, and Asha came willingly. "Well, my secret is out. You found the reason the Angara called me Shena." Asha slapped at him in mock indignation. "And I should believe that's the only reason? Alright, Shena. Show me what you got."


End file.
